There’s another systemic layer to the game we haven’t really discussed in the blogs before now, at least not in any detail, which is a source of potential Victory Points (VPs).

This element concerns indigenous British culture. It’s a later addition to the design and something we are still exploring in development. Early playtesting exposed the possibility that we weren’t giving the British factions enough interesting opportunities to earn early VPs. We also had a concern that we weren’t representing enough of indigenous British culture within the design – there was some reference to the destruction of it through the rise in British Tension as a result of Roman buildings and roads – ‘Romanizing’ the British landscape and scarring and irretrievably altering it – but no real reference to its growth or sustenance. These were omissions we sought to address through a new system. This system would incentivize a more pliant approach to Rome and discourage military resistance. British factions would now have a reason to focus on non-military actions, and to therefore highlight other strands of their cultural identity within the framework of the game. It would theoretically be possible to win without ever fighting, but through careful management of cards to secure hegemonies in trade, agricultural production, the generation of crafts, the protection and development of ceremonial sites and customs. But this system would need to have a light design footprint – meaning it would be easy to learn and to integrate into the existing game.

All Briton faction deck cards belong to one of four suits:

• Agriculture
• Crafts
• Ceremony
• Trade

Each of these suits reflects a key aspect of British culture at the time. At the end of the game the Briton player with the highest sequential run of each suit in their discards wins that suit (i.e. unbroken by cards of a different suit) and is awarded the number of VPs equal to the sequential run.

This incentivizes British tribes to prioritize cultural concerns over making war. But then, for Rome this could be bad news as immensely stable and culturally successful but placid tribes might ultimately be a threat to Roman hegemony.

But there are two further important details here.

Rome also has some cards belonging to the Trade suit. If Rome has more sequential Trade cards than any Briton factions Rome gets the VPs instead of any Briton factions. So Rome, too, can focus away from military campaigning.

Further, on set up there are tokens corresponding to the four suits placed in specific regions on the board.

The Events deck can also cause new tokens to be placed. If you control a region with one of these tokens at the end of the game, these are added to your tally of sequential cards, so can become VPs. (This will be explained in more detail when we look at the Events deck.)

Rome will also lose VP for every Ceremony token on the board at the end of the game. This represents Rome failing to assert herself in the face of significant cultural sites (such as stone circles) or ceremonies, which help the Briton’s retain a sense of identity and continuity.

Given the geographic locations of the different Briton factions – with the Iceni closer to the nexus of likely Roman control, and the Brigantes and Silures more distant from it – it’s also more likely for the Iceni to either be placid towards Rome, or to rise up quickly and potentially lethally, while the Silures remain persistently difficult to tame, and while the Brigantes remain more tangential to Roman plans, unless forced to take action.

This is a system we now have implemented, but we will have to see through playtesting if it is working as intended, both in terms of the narrative we were hoping to evoke, and in terms of the play experience. So watch this space…

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